


Fire Sale

by cognomen



Series: Everything Must Go [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Blowjobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:34:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is paid to do what he does and he is certain to keep his excellent reputation. At first, he notices patterns, because he is trained to see, qualify and quantify human behavior. As he lets go of what he used to know, he sees that the 'patterns' almost always run reverse to expectations when it's behind closed doors. </p><p>Prostitute AU in which Reese is not homeless but a different sort of sellout. Partial reworking of the first episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Sale

It hadn't taken John long to realize this job was just as much about illusions as his last one. There's a certain amount of lying expected - that's considered professional, even. People aren't expecting his real name, or unscripted answers, and his past means he at least learns pretty quickly that even if someone _says_ they want honesty, they don't. They want very elaborate lies so that their own seem small in comparison.

Women don't want to know that he goes to men - more often in fact, they're repeat customers - and men either don't want to know about the women or want to feel like they finally have a point to prove at the expense of someone they can believe or pretend is straight. There are a lot of problems with repression, John has come to realize, in a culture where violence is more acceptable to see or discuss than sexual expression of any flavor.

It's not his job to be involved in politics anymore. But he still sees how some of them hold swaying pendulums in people's hearts, because not _everyone_ can separate the physical from the mental.

But killing and fucking are both functions of his body and he figures if he's okay with doing the first one without fully understanding the reasoning behind it, the second one is nothing he should be _allowed_ to balk at. He's not a murderer, but a killer. Not a lover, but a prostitute. Emotions stripped out of both actions to make them the same. If this feels like it should be more self destructive or reprehensible, John reminds himself that it's just politics that tell him that.

Because he has been dangerous, and knows how to appear dangerous, and other men will pay well for the illusion of having power over him - over something that so obviously could turn the tables - but in a safe way. In a way that puts the ultimate lead in their hands: because they hold the money, they feel secure enough at their cores to feel insecure. 

He is paid to do what he does and he is certain to keep his excellent reputation. At first, he notices patterns, because he is trained to see, qualify and quantify human behavior. As he lets go of what he used to know, he sees that the 'patterns' almost always run reverse to expectations when it's behind closed doors. 

Every so often it surprises him. Mostly what he never expects is someone who doesn't want _some_ form of lie. When he's paid to be 'in control' there's always the understanding that it stretches so far. When he's paid to surrender - that will only be under his terms, either. He has an excellent representative - necessary, since John himself won't touch the Internet, tries to avoid all contact with computers.

If he could withdraw from society wholesale and still endure this much punishment for his failures, still be assured he would undergo it until he lost even _this_ meager worth as a human being, then he would. This works for now. If his representative - the woman preferred 'agent' to 'pimp', neither of which was wholly accurate - has noticed that John scrapes by on the barest edge of survival when his wages should have left him enough to live far more comfortably, she just collects her fees in silence.

She over charges, but rarely lets anyone through that presents a problem. She is at least partially worth her take in that regard. So tonight, when it's trouble that opens his door in a group of three - against all policy - John knows this wasn’t agreed to.

Someone has gotten cocky, a rarity given the sensitivity of position one could find themselves in when prostitution was involved. That they want trouble is evident. That John _doesn't_ is equally so. He doesn't start it - one circles around while he is sitting still and non-threatening and doing his best to _talk_ his way out. He doesn't want the attention, the stain on his record. He lives to keep his records pristine.

The sucker-punch ends his diplomacy; the ensuing fight leaves him a small riot of bruising and the others in a heap. He calls his agent to reroute his appointments before he calls the cops, but someone’s beaten him to it. John clams up, gives as little story as he needs to. The security cameras had captured the troublemakers entering the building and enough of the altercation as it had spilled into the hallway of the tenement to tell the story. John's glad he's let himself go shaggy and unkempt - this was a mess.

-

The cop they set on him is sharp. She takes a look at the tapes and sees something she knows - maybe more than just one 'something', and he refuses to give his whole name, just sits sullen and quiet, _waiting_. She takes his water cup with a deliberate touch - to leave his fingerprints intact - and he realizes the mistake.

An opportunity will come, as they always do. All he has to do is be quiet and wait as long as that takes. 

"This is beyond a few lessons in cardio-kickboxing, John." She says, letting the tape run even though he's not looking at it - doesn't have to. "Where did you serve? I'm going to guess black ops - so you won't tell me. That's okay."

She's trying to be his friend. "It'd be a little easier for me to get you out of here if you'd let them hit _you_ a few more times." 

He'd meant to. It's hard to stop his instincts when there's real danger. A miscalculation would have led to him being overwhelmed.

"It's hard to adjust again, isn't it?" She's dancing around some issue - probably asking him what he was doing there in the first place, a known flop house and John without any obvious means of income otherwise. She's ex-military too, or at least she walks and perceives the world that way. She knows, and finds John's 'predicament' painful to contemplate. "There are places you can go for help."

"Am I in trouble?" John asks.

She stops, and before her expression closes, he sees that she regrets not being able to help him. No wonder she'd left the military. Some people were too smart for it, others too human. He was neither, she was both. He likes her, even though it's useless to do so. 

"No, not yet. But I'm waiting for your prints to come back. I could get you out of here faster if I had a name..."

He doesn't point out she has one, she wouldn't appreciate the joke. He just - waits. The clock in the holding room is digital, but he envisions the slow tick of the old analogs he's used to, and lets the imagined sound fill his ears while he sits. His opportunity isn't here yet, but he'll _get_ it.

-

It's not what he expects, which should be his reaction by now, the man sitting in his new room, gathered together into as small a space as possible though there's only one place to sit and that's the bed. He looks like he wants to touch as little as possible. Or just that he always isolates himself through posture and the current surroundings are no more undesirable than any others. The way he's dressed, in careful layers and with glasses instead of contacts, suggest money enough that his style escaped the boundaries of practicality or current fashion.

Or maybe it _was_ current again. John paid no attention to fashion. He also - and John stands silent in his own doorway and makes a point of checking the phone he never carries, lifting it off the dresser to confirm - 

"You don't have an appointment," It's not without a little humor. The stiff back, the careful posture - John doesn't think this visit can be totally related to his last one.

"No," the man answers, like it wasn't what he'd really expected.

"Don't like records?" John asks, lifts his hands to his own top two buttons - he hasn't worn a tie in so long that it’s no longer a habit. Self consciously, he brushes the backs of his fingers against the underside of his jaw and feels exposed to be so close shaven.

"You could say that, I-"

"Don't blame you." John knows, of course he knows the visit isn't a coincidence, nor is it unrelated to his past. He pushes forward anyway. Partly because he's tired of dealing with this and he thinks if he just keeps pushing, whoever this is will break and let him be. The wide-eyed gaze watching him undo buttons _seems_ breakable. Like John won't even have to use too much force. Like there might already be a lever in place, waiting to be pushed on. "I don't either."

"I'm not here for-"

His shirt open, John stalks the space between them closed and the stranger falters, almost leans back from him. As if he's forgotten how small personal space should be, or how much intrusion an act like this should take.

"I'm not here for that, Mr. Reese."

That halts John, and he looks down at the intruder, taking advantage of the height that standing gives him. He knows he'd have it anyway, the advantage, but this deeply emphasizes how tall he actually is.

The man looks up at him with a sort of owlish determination, his eyes overlarge so that even with a slightly narrowed set they appear almost wild and afraid. John can still see the determination, and almost an - understanding. It's something he hasn't experienced before, not for a long time. And - the man knows his name. At least, his last alias, before he gave up having a last name, real or not.

"Then what _are_ you here for?"

He pushes, can't entirely stop himself, because his instinct is to break this man before anything the stranger says or does can affect John. Because his past is the only thing that holds him, anymore.

The stranger, however small and flighty seeming, is resolute. He places his hands on the rough fabric of the comforter at his sides and smooths them outward, flattening and neatening the blankets as if tidying the bed could subdue its past, erase what happened to it. As if he wasn't afraid of touching something so soiled, because he had the firm conviction he could return it to pristine usefulness. 

"Mr. Reese, I'm here to make you an offer." And the stranger is smart, because he doesn't try to append any idea that he intends to _save_ John. "Not to try and save you out of compassion, or take you away from all this and give you something better - which I firmly believe is what you deserve."

He leans hard on his 'h' sounds, and doesn't omit them when they have a 'w' prefix; sounds so cultured that he can't be missing what he's stepped into. The sort of client John likes because he can get them to come back, invariably. 

"What I want to give you instead is a chance to be _useful_ again. An _opportunity_ -" The stranger stresses his words carefully and refuses to look at anything but John's eyes. "To do the opposite of what you once did. To help _save_ people."

"I'm not in that line of business anymore, Mr.-?" 

"You can call me Mr. Finch."

An alias for an alias, then. But likely, Finch knew more than what he implied, if he knew Reese was an alias at all. John doesn't let himself get caught on that hook.

"In case you haven't noticed, _Mr. Finch_ , I choose to rely on a different set of abilities to survive these days."

"But you haven't _forgotten_ ," Finch suggests, implying that recent events were what drew his seeking eye to Reese as a potential ally. "So why waste all that talent?"

"Why use it?" John challenges back, putting his hands on his hips and debating the least messy way to remove this man from his room. He supposes, with resignation, that he'll have to remove himself to some other location again anyway. This place is obviously no longer safe. "Don't take this the wrong way, Mr. Finch, but if the government wants me back they'll have to send more than you."

Reese is fishing. Something about this guy said he wasn't official - he didn't ring as CIA or FBI, not any sort with a badge. So how he knew what he did and what he could be asking Reese for, _that_ was interesting information. Reese pressed the gap again, crowding with his knees a hair from brushing the seated man's.

Finch pointedly looks up at his face, but flinches from the ghost of contact without hiding it. Maybe he's hoping his obvious discomfort will awaken compassion in Reese. Definitely _not_ trained in any way, then.

"I'm not with the government, Mr. Reese." Finch continues, and John can see the muscles in his neck trembling as he holds his head tilted so far back, but not the same fear in his eyes. "I represent my own interests. Interests that I hope to convince you to share."

"And what are those?" John asks without meaning to, because he doesn't care exactly but he wants to know what would drive this man into such close proximity with, well - _him_. He’s dangerous, both physically and to this man's reputation. Mr. Finch wears the expensive, closely tailored Armani suit and daintily patterned silk tie of someone who allowed reputation to matter very much. 

John tries to categorize him, and finds it difficult. It’s hardly ever easy, exactly, but even his usual game of guessing where the opposite parts are hiding doesn't seem quite adequate. He is tidy, upright, proper - but maybe that extends further into his personal life than it usually does. Possibly he’s nervous about intimacy, possibly aggressive. Possibly, the open blue eyes and soft, expressive, crooked mouth are all an act and he’s none of these things. Certainly he’s all mystery, and that is the sort of challenge John knows will mean trouble.

He _should_ walk away. He resolves to, decides to allow himself exactly three questions before he goes, and counts the one he'd already asked. Mr. Finch is on borrowed time.

"I have access to certain information," Finch begins like a bad spy movie, and John scoffs and backs off suddenly, wondering if this isn't a strange and elaborate client fantasy after all. If this isn't some rich idea of a good game to play, pretending to be James Bond outside the sack as well as in it. The noise seems to shake Finch, makes him change tracks with a slight waver in his voice. Possibly, it knocks him off script. John doesn't care.

He picks up his keys from the dresser, shoves them in his pocket, can see the sudden anxious lean Finch's posture take on when he senses he's lost John's attention.

"There are one point four homicides in New York City every day, Mr. Reese. Four hundred and ninety four in a year on average. What if I said we could make that three hundred? If we could stop it - not entirely, but anything that was premeditated. You can't predict _everything_ , not the crimes of passion that occur in the heat of the moment - but you can stop _some_." Finch is halfway to his feet, frozen as John has frozen, his coat half on and hands holding tight to the lapels in their forgotten, half-completed motion of rearranging the coat's seat on his shoulders.

"Predict?" John asks, finding his mind settling on the easiest word out of the whole statement to deal with. Because the rest - even the suggestion is ludicrous. "What are we talking about, Mr. Finch? Psychics? Magic eight balls? You can't _predict_ when someone's going to try and kill another person."

"Science, Mr. Reese. Not psychics or magic. Come with me and I'll show you. I can't explain, exactly," Finch allows himself a smile, believing he hasn't lost John already but _gained_ him, "And you wouldn't believe me if I did-"

John flicks his coat up on his shoulders and walks out. If this game is real, it's too much, and if it's not, he won't get paid at the end of it. He knows himself, his curiosity, too well. He knows that he'd end up caring again. That he'd find himself next to a sleeping human being in the morning instead of just a client, and he'd slide out of those expensive sheets in secret and silence. He'd let the man live his fantasy of having a life more dangerous and interesting than watching the DOW roller coaster all day. Money could buy you that, but he knows he wouldn't take it. It would be too close to his own reality, and the puzzle too intricate - too diverting - to cheapen. 

His thoughts are full of the too-bright quality of early morning sunshine and the deep comfort of expensive sheets and waking at leisure, rather than to the precise tone of the alarm or internal clock.

-

At 4:15 p.m. a week later his door opens to admit a rumpled looking man in a cheap suit. He's doughy and average looking, like a wage-worker, but there's something else about him.

"Christ," the guy says, shocked. He looks like the trip up the stairs, the realization that he's really _here_ has done a number on him. "I didn't expect you to be-"

He also looks like a cop. Like maybe he was here to try for a bust, but suddenly changed his mind. Shellshocked, and with color in his rough, round cheeks.

"You my four thirty?" John asks, letting him in and the invading his space. He doesn't have a 4:30.

"Yeah, uh, I guess so," the cop says, blusters, but he's _weighing his options_ , so John figures he can get the upper hand.

John crowds up against him. Pushes him against the door he came through.

"How this works is usually you put the money on the dresser," John tells him, hears the man swallow and watches his throat contract. "And then neither of us touches it until we're done."

"Uh huh," he says, but he doesn't buy it. Not his first rodeo. "Well, where I come from you usually at least see the goods before you lay down the cash."

"And where is that?" John asks, closer still but not touching - not just yet. "Downtown?"

The guy laughs - has a sense of humor in spite of everything, and the tension breaks. John knows he's going to bed with this man instead of to jail.

"Does it matter?"

"No, just making conversation-" John startles him with the first touch, a flat hand pressed against his chest. "What do I call you?"

" _That_ matters?" he snorts, but allows, "Lionel."

It's unusual - like him. Crooked in the middle and easy to bend with his voice until John gets it just the way he likes it.

"Do you kiss, _Lionel_?"

He colors up, red. Lionel clearly _wants_ to, but he's wary. Like it's a trick question, and it puts him off, puts him on guard. He looks at John's mouth, then up at his eyes, assembles a mask of bravado. He chuckles and asks, "Is it extra?"

John shoves him back and takes his mouth. Lionel opens his, wanting - willing. Expecting it. He tastes like coffee, like the occasional snuck cigarette - just often enough to give him an excuse to stand outside and be one of the boys. Lionel _leans_ into it, pushes back to show he can and that he's not unsure what he wants, so John breaks the kiss.

"Yes," John says, because it _is_ extra.

Lionel arches his brows, tips his head once to the side in a motion of concession. "Hey, no offense, but is the _bed_ extra, too?"

John lets himself laugh - he's actually amused by the layer of confidence Lionel has assembled. He draws back, yanks Lionel with him and gives him a push in the right direction. 

Lionel takes his shoes off before he settles onto it, the illusion of taking his time. 

John follows. When Lionel sits, he crouches, just at the bedside, and with the excuse of taking off his own shoes, he reaches under the bed's frame and touches the controls on the bluetooth remote taped beneath. It turns on the digital camera in his laptop.

"You can have what _you_ want. You're paying-" John implies heavily as he reaches up again, palms Lionel's erection through his starchy, cheap pants.

He's the sort of guy who never comes out on the top of situations, the dog who goes hungry until the rest of the pack has eaten. The sort who Reese would have walked over, if there wasn't money and his reputation involved. 

Lionel's imagination seizes the cue, tells him what it would be like - having something so powerful; so wild and raw but subdued. For _him_. He could hold John down in place and take what he wanted and get away with it. For once.

But surprisingly, Lionel says, "Nah. We'll go your way." And John realizes he puts himself at the bottom of the pack because that's what he _knows_. That's where it's safest to be. And he won't, on matter of principal or pride perhaps, _pay_ for the opportunity to move up - he wants to earn it himself, maybe.

John pushes him back and sits up, leans over him with his knees still on the floor and puts his mouth on Lionel's clothed erection, feels it jump in response - tastes dry cleaning chemicals and salt-starch. Leaves a big wet mark as he crouches like an animal laying claim.

He's never resorted to cheap tricks - no zippers undone with his teeth, nothing showy. John's opinion is, if he does it right, they won't care if it was impressive technically.

He just pushes his tongue firmly along the wet fabric until Lionel groans half in protest and then gets the zipper with his hands. Lionel lifts his hips and lets John pull the pants down over them, and then he gets his mouth on the man's cock, lets it fill the space over his tongue and between his teeth.

He varies pressure, letting it sound loud and fill the space as he sucks but doesn't move, not until he tastes the first hints of bitterness and then he stops. Pulls back and leaves his hand on Lionel. Rough swipes of his tongue over the head end the wordless noises of protest while he reaches, works the pump bottle on the nightstand, a brazen statement of his purpose in evident display. John slicks his hand, his fingers, transfers his grip between hands, stroking Lionel's erection with either hand until both it and his hands are slick enough for his liking. 

He takes Lionel's cock back in his mouth, notes the eager sound he pulls from somewhere in Lionel's chest as he pushes two slick fingers against his anus, the way the man tenses - almost resists before he relaxes. 

"Are you gonna-?" Lionel huffs out on a breath, but his body is already opening, already admitting the slick slow slide of two fingers. It's answer enough, and John doesn't rush. Opens his mouth wider and takes him deep with the press of his fingers and the welcome of his tongue and fist together.

He brushes past the rougher parts inside Lionel at first, pushing as deep as he can and noting how the bitter taste along the back of his tongue changes, increases. How Lionel tilts his hips up to take his slick fingers deeper still, then he curls them back toward himself, as if he were beckoning.

He knows when he gets it right, Lionel cues him with his voice, affirming.

"Yeah, yeah - _oh_." And that's surprised, as John pushes hard, to the point of pain but not past it, and taste the first slow pulse of the flood in his mouth. He pushes and rubs, lets the man come and come, until the motion changes in Lionel. Until he's not pushing _down_ anymore but arching _away_ >

Uncurling his fingers, John waits a breath, two, thrusts shallowly with his fingers and then he withdraws because he can't take the taste anymore. Lionel is right there, but gone - eyes open, panting, but gone past on orgasm and he doesn't see John wipe his mouth in the sheets.

He hits the button again as he shifts up to his feet, stopping the recording. He resists the urge to push his mouth against Lionel's as it lays open, panting, to make him taste too. He doesn't think Lionel would appreciate it. 

"Next time," he says instead, as he moves into the bathroom, washes his hands. "Money on the dresser."

It's there - the money - when John's done cleaning up. Lionel isn't. He presses his ear to the door after checking the video and setting the automatic program to choose stills. He hears the man's lowered voice in the stairwell, just outside his door - on the phone, no doubt.

"I don't know what to tell you, Detective Carter. He's not here."

John opens the door, stares hard at Lionel, and passes him two printed stills while he's still on the phone, and a voice is sounding too quiet to make out words on the other side. Lionel's belt is still undone. Lionel terminates the call and looks up at John.

"Good, _Lionel,_ ," John explains. It's enough. "Now do up your belt and get out."

"The pictures?" Lionel asks, still trying to process through information to implication. He seems resigned, looking down at himself, at his destruction if the pictures got to his precinct.

"My security," John says. "I could _shoot_ you instead, if you wanted."

Lionel looks up at him, somewhere between hurt and injury. John reads the words unspoken - 'you didn't have to, I was already protecting myself, and you. You didn't have to make it like _this_.' Then Lionel crumples the pages, shoves them back into John's hands and stomps down the stairs to the street.  
-

Something about the encounter haunts John a little. He remembers when he could afford to be less ruthless, on his own time. Because his mind is occupied with the sweep of dark hair, and the old, raw longing to live a _familiar_ life, he misses the two suited men who fall in behind him at the foot of the stair when he goes out. His instincts only shriek to life when they're right on top of him.

He wonders if this makes him right or wrong about Finch, he wishes he didn't care but finds as he wrestles with them - grapples for control of a needle, that he _has_ to know. They try to twist him, to apply leverage and pressure, and he wonders if he shouldn't fight it too hard, but in the end he has to.

He leaves them only partly broken, and disappears - frustrated with having to move and move and move. The past was dogging him, hunting him, and sooner or later it would put him to ground for good. Instead of moving on to the next hotel, he limps away and calls his agent, tells her he's got heat on him, and decides to go to his safe house - 'home', for all intents and purposes.

It's defeat, but strategic, he tells himself to take the sting out of it. And really, what's the difference? John will be going to a single room, a bed, paying by the week and living out of cans and eating off of two plates. He is careful to check the place before he enters it, and sees no signs of anyone watching. 

He has come to understand loneliness and seclusion, not necessarily in himself because he never needed much company, but in those who come to see him. When he enters the room he finds that the man - Mr. Finch - is back again, nerves and big eyes. Wetting his lips and leaning back when John enters this new space, and looking up and up at him.

"I gave you my answer, Mr. Finch," Reese tells him, already aware that this visit is not about that. Something in the angle of the man's posture, the wet, desperate eyes. Something's changed and brought this man here for the other reason. Comfort, raw and physical connection. 

"I know you did." Finch says, swallows, and then, "I know."

John reads the unspoken 'but', and starts pulling off his gloves. 

"I have no one else to go to," Finch says, and some part of his old fire is back in him, with the desperation. "And today I lost-"

John doesn't care. He doesn't _want_ to care. So if he chooses to take advantage of the weakness he's being shown, of pressing the bad decision this man had made in his need for comfort and understanding, it's not entirely to seize control of the situation. Just mostly. 

"You're not here to try and recruit me again." John lets his voice sink to just above a whisper, making that as much a warning as a statement. "Are you?"

Finch swallows and then shakes his head after a moment, then looks away, ashamed. 

John's normally okay with letting them lie to themselves, but as he undoes his buttons slowly, he wonders why this is different. Maybe because he gets the feeling this man isn't a very good liar.

Finch actually startles when John's shirt hits the floor, like he'd expected time to stop while he wasn't looking. 

"Have you-" it's a question John doesn't get to finish.

"-Yes." Finch answers, too quickly, his eyes on John's hands as if they belonged to a wild animal. John stops undoing his own pants, expecting what comes next. "A long time ago."

Spoken like a true loner. 

John stops bothering with his pants, just closes the distance and folds his knees. Finch doesn't stop him until he's got the man's belt undone, the fly open. The boxers beneath are just as expensive as the suit, probably real silk, and John runs the back of his knuckles over the fly before Finch seizes his hands in a sudden, tight, furious motion.

"Do you - even _like_ doing this?" He almost spits his anger in John's face, upset at his passive acceptance of fate. But he's as angry with himself for being here. For - John curls his fingers, even entrapped as they are in Finch's own, around silk covered skin - for _wanting_ to be here. Blood answers his touch, crawling down to harden Finch's cock in an almost begrudging way.

"Would it make it easier for you if I didn't?" John asks, and notes how the man's erection twitches in his fingers at the low sound of his voice, wanting. 

But Finch just scoffs, looks away. John doesn't stop, freeing his fingers from Finch's. 

"What if I _do_ like it?" John asks, seizing the waistband of Finch's boxers and pulling it down so he doesn't have to reach into them. So they can _both_ see what he's doing. "What if I like it just as much as I liked killing?"

Finch makes a noise, but whether it's a response to his words or his hand curling firmly around his hardening cock is unclear.

"But what about-"

He puts his mouth to better use than answering, and Finch startles at the sudden sensation though it can't have been unexpected. John doesn't want to talk anymore, and Finch goes quiet, question unfinished save the trail of his voice.

As he pulls one hand away to steady it against Finch's thigh, he can feel the low strain and tremble of muscle there - like something taxed past weakness or held past the point of balance. There's nothing about his position that should cause it. John shifts, and doesn't feel the motion echoed in the other leg. An injury - one _real_ thing he knows about Mr. Finch.

He sinks his mouth down and the tremble increases, as Finch holds himself back, but John isn't going to let him _endure_ this. He pushes his tongue, pointed, up against the frenulum and presses upward, just enough pressure that the head rubs the roof of his mouth and Finch can just begin to sense John's teeth behind.

Finch groans finally, giving up a sound that isn't just the harsh rasp of his breathing.

"John!" Finch says suddenly, just as John's closing his eyes. It's not 'Mr. Reese', but they're a little more intimate than that just now. He puts his hands in John's hair then pulls - not just a tug but a sustained pull to get him up, and John relents. Slowly, at his own pace.

Finch is breathing hard, looking down at him in a wild-eyed confusion of concern and darkened eyes. Nothing more than a ring of blue shows around his pupils, but his mouth firms, pulls his lower lip between his teeth and then gets ready to - speak, John thinks.

But he doesn't speak, instead his hands come up, first one tightening in his hair again and then the other pushing two fingers against John's lips, against his teeth, and into his mouth when he opens it for Finch.

He only notices the pill when it paints a bitter stripe over his tongue, but before he can tense, it's practically down his throat already and Finch is pulling his bitten fingers away in a hurry, tight against his chest while John tastes Finch's blood and coughs - harsh.

The pill goes down instead of up and then lodges painfully in his throat, and all John can do is swallow over and over and look up angrily into Finch's terrified eyes while Finch holds his injured hand against his chest with the other.

"What was it?" John asks, gripping Finch's leg tightly where he _knows_ it's weak, and the man gasps in a breath.

"It's a sedative, Mr. Reese-" his voice breaks upward as John finds the scar and pushes his thumb into it. "Just a sedative!"

It's the truth. John can already feel the lethargy spreading in his limbs and with a last brutal twist of his hand that wrenches a noise from Finch, he staggers to his feet. He has to get out of there, but the world swings and spirals, fights against him. Finch hadn't taken any chances with the dose - smart - but it won't be-  
-

He wakes slowly, then suddenly when he registers his surroundings. A rattle signals the end of range of motion - he's tethered to the headboard. The room is much nicer than any he's known in a long while, but he hardly appreciates it. He works his fingers into the zip-tie around his wrist and pulls and yanks, but there's not enough slack. 

The headboard rattles. The phone on the bedside table rings loudly, insistently. John's world changes.

-End.


End file.
